Mind your own business
Strategic planning is an attempt to work out how an organisation
will deal with a changing environment. You can use
a plan as a basis for communicating with funders and beneficiaries,
and for measuring your achievements and successes. Internally,
a plan can give focus and direction to an organisation, helping
to minimise and resolve conflict and increase morale.
Producing a plan
You should aim to develop a plan that covers one to three
years. Such an important process needs an investment of trustee,
staff and volunteer time. A key person or small working group
should be given the task of managing the process.
Many organisations use consultants
for strategic planning. If you do so, it's important
to maintain control and use the consultant as an adviser.
By being fully involved, you will not only improve your own
understanding of your organisation, you will also be in a
stronger position to justify your statements and forecasts
- see going to plan.
Expert view
Yogesh Chauhan is a planning expert, see what he has to say
about the importance of the strategic plan.
Select the play button to start the clip.
Video view: Greencastle Woman's
Group
See how Greencastle Women's Group, (a Belfast-based community
organisation who are about to lose their current premises)
use a planning weekend with an external facilitator to identify
their priorities for the future.
Select the play button to start the clip.
Widespread consultation,
involving staff, volunteers, management committee, users and
external agencies, is essential. While this can be time-consuming,
it can also be enlightening, giving diverse participants an
opportunity to discuss an organisation's development.
Plans for the future always create uncertainty and this makes
people nervous about their own future. Take these concerns
into account in devising your planning process and deal as
honestly, openly and quickly as you can with everyone.
Planning basics
A strategic plan will be based on a clear and agreed understanding
of the organisation's vision,
values and mission.
Assessing your organisation and its competitors is central
to the planning process. A SWOT
analysis focuses on the organisation's internal
strengths and weakness and its external opportunities and
threats. The next step is to plan precisely what your key
actions and
targets will be and the costs
of carrying them out. You will then be able to set out the
strategic direction of the organisation over the coming years.
Your plan should include long-term aims.
Video view: RS Health
See how RS Health (an HIV prevention charity based in London)
planned to develop a new area of activity.
Select the play button to start the clip.
Publishing and distribution
Your plan should be a working document. Decide how to make
it known to everybody in the organisation. Some organisations
display a chart, some publish a report. Who will you show
it to outside the organisation? An overall summary of your
plan's main content could be very useful for potential funders,
members and decision-makers.
Implementation
Planning should not take the place of action! For most organisations
the most difficult part of the plan is implementing it.
To use the plan as a management tool, you will need effective
monitoring and evaluation
systems. Many organisations will already have systems such
as annual reviews, supervision and appraisals, although you
may have to think of other tools to supplement these as a
means of measuring how you are progressing.
Often circumstances change so rapidly that the plan becomes
outdated. It's important to review your plan regularly
- at least once a year. If necessary, the broad aims and targets
for subsequent years can be amended.
Increasingly, the tools being used for managing people, measuring
results and organisational planning are coming directly from
techniques developed for the private sector. But the voluntary
sector is different. It is not driven by profit maximisation;
it often provides goods and services that are difficult to
measure; it has to meet the needs of a variety of individuals
that have a stake in the organisation; and it has to look
for funds and justify itself in the outside world. Management
practices from the private sector must always be adapted bearing
these differences in mind.
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